


Will You Dance With Me?

by DaringlyDomestic



Series: Tumblr Drabble Challenge [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 21:29:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7008871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaringlyDomestic/pseuds/DaringlyDomestic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You sing in my veins every minute of every day. My mind is constantly consumed with thoughts of you. And, frankly, this throbbing, thudding, never-ending want terrifies me. I don’t know how to reconcile it with the importance of the Work, which pales drastically in comparison. ”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Will You Dance With Me?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @officialbooksmell for the prompt "Wanna Dance?"

The sweetest phrase we will ever hear. Three words. Eight letters.

Everyone knows.

Or they think they do.

Those words are beautiful and pure. When they came to us, the moment was perfection.

But that was not the sweetest moment of my life.

The sweetest moment, the one I will remember forever, happened on a dark January night when the cold crept through the brick walls, wrapping itself along our spines. Low strains of some unnamable composer drifted airily through the flat. Naturally, the honor of brewing hot tea, gathering blankets, and tending the fire fell to me. I was not in a particularly good mood and made known quite plainly my agitation over being taken for granted.

I spent the better part of an hour making the flat habitable to the non-Arctic inhabitants, at the time there were several leopard seal specimens cooling in our ice box for reasons that are unfathomable to this day. Sherlock, however, insisted on their importance earnestly, and I could hardly deny him anything that lit his face so fully with genuine, unadulterated happiness. But that was not the point.

The point was that I was tired, and my shoulder ached from the chill. Sherlock had been consumed by “Project Leopard Seal” for the better part of a fortnight, and, in all honesty, I missed him. Being trapped in our flat by a snowstorm, I naturally assumed that we might take advantage of such a moment and regain some of the intimacy I had been missing. Sherlock evidently did not.

It is not that he was being cruel or intentionally distant. He just did not seem to have the same urgent need for closeness that I did on that night. His incomparable intellect was enflamed with whatever obscure puzzle the seal specimens represented, and there was simply no room for anything else. This level of obsession, he would say dedication, was not uncommon and would not normally have given my any cause for concern. It wasn’t personal.

Except it was. The most fallible of human traits roared inside of me. My instinctive need for companionship, to love and be loved in return - to feel - had been suppressed for too long. My emotions were staging a coup against my rational mind, and I was wholly unprepared.  

Something of my inner turmoil must have sparked my companion’s attention because he turned to stare at me with such an expression of intense concentration that I momentarily felt a pang of empathy for the seal. To be the focus of such attention was not new, but it was always humbling. I can’t imagine any man likes to be flayed open and publicly dissected. 

For several moments, there was complete silence and utter stillness. Having lived and worked alongside the detective for many years, I inevitably saw the moment of realization flash across his face. I could feel the guilty, embarrassed heat flaming my cheeks, and I had to break his gaze.

As I stood in our sitting room, staring at my well-worn, recently darned socks (god bless Mrs. Hudson), I heard the prompt thud of a seal carcass being unceremoniously dropped to the kitchen floor.   

“John.”

The deep baritone rumbled with affection, and I could detect a hint of uncertainty rounding out the subsonic purr. I chanced a look up at his face and was surprised to see confusion flickering alongside fear. It was enough to snap me out of my anger, and I gave him a reassuring, warm smile, knowing full well that he could read the sincerity in my eyes.

The air turned warm, despite the winter wind. Sherlock quickly stripped his gloves and goggles, laying them gently on the worktop. Running his fingers through his hair, he walked - stalked - over to me and circled me slowly. Each step was accompanied by a seductive roll of his hips and a rippling of his shoulders.

As he prowled along my back, a heated breath curled around my ear, a long lean hand stole around my waist, and he whispered softly.

“Will you dance with me?”

I jerked my head around to meet his gaze. It was such an unexpected demand, for though he phrased it as a question, there was no doubt that I would acquiesce. For all his bravado and sex appeal, I detected the shy tenderness underlying the suggestion. 

There was nothing else for it, so I twirled in his arms and pressed our chests together as my hands swept up to tangle in the curls at the nape of his neck while my elbows rested on his shoulders. His other hand slid down to grip my waist as well. I knew this was not the appropriate stance for a waltz, Sherlock had taught me very well, but I simply wanted to be as close to him as possible. It seemed he felt the same. 

He rested his cheek against mine, and I could feel his heart thundering in his chest even though we were revolving slowly. I swiped my thumbs along his skull and planted a chaste kiss at his temple while he tightened his grip.

“I’m sorry, John.”

The whispered confession caught me off-guard, and it took me several embarrassingly-long seconds to understand. Sensing my confusion, he began to elucidate. 

“You must understand. You are unique - an exception so magnificent in your scope that it is impossible for me to comprehend all the ways in which you astound me. I have not experienced this before and am still figuring out how one is meant to balance this with the rest of one’s life when the feeling is all consuming.”

I felt my breath falter as I gazed at him in amazement.

“You sing in my veins every minute of every day. My mind is constantly consumed with thoughts of you. And, frankly, this throbbing, thudding, never-ending want terrifies me. I don’t know how to reconcile it with the importance of the Work, which pales drastically in comparison. ”

As he finished his diatribe, the breath whooshed out of his chest, and he looked at me with such a profoundly lost expression that my heart ached for him. I could not resist pressing my lips to his just to watch the happiness and wonder spread across his features. I nosed along his cheek and up into his curls.

“My love.”

He physically shuddered with pleasure at the loving epithet.

“Can you not see that they are one and the same? You and me and the Work. We all fit together. There will never be a need to choose between the two things. You couldn’t if you tried, and I would not want you to. I need the Work as much as you do, Sherlock. We need each other.”

He sagged with relief.

“Yes.”

His response was vehement, like I had pulled the truth from the depths of his soul and exposed it when he could not. We swayed happily back and forth, around the room, until our bodies protested the cold.

Later we snuggled into the nest of blankets in front of the roaring fire and shared lazy kisses.

On a bright day in June, Sherlock would whisper I love you into my skin for the very first time. It would fill me with an immeasurable warmth that does not fade, but it would not even come close to the significance of that cold January evening when we pledged ourselves to the Work, and to one another.

That was the night that our odd domesticity, the careful calm of Baker Street, and our intertwined bodies nestled in a deep eiderdown comforter became the Work. We: the unmistakable duo, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, became Us: two people, a single unit. A subtlety, to be sure, but an important one to my mind. It was a concession so large I had scarcely dared conceive of it. But Sherlock gave it willingly, wholeheartedly, as if it was a privilege. As if it was of the utmost importance. As if it was singular - the only thing that could possibly matter at that moment.

And it was.

**Author's Note:**

> As always please feel free to tell me what you thought! I'd love to chat.  
> Feel free to send me prompts if you have something you've been dying to have written, either on here or over on Tumblr (I am @daringlydomestic).


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